~ Confessions Of A Christian Conservative Constitutionalist

Last Lunch With Cecil

On this day in 2010, Cecil Fulfer was murdered in his home at Holly Lake Ranch in Wood County, East Texas. He was stabbed in the chest. No arrests have ever been made. I’d known Cecil since elementary school and through junior high and high school. We were never what I would call extremely close friends, but I feel a deep bond with all my classmates– especially the ones that I remember from my six formative years at Walnut Hill Elementary.

Cecil was popular in high school, a cheerleader and very active in the youth group at Northway Baptist Church. Not exactly a macho guy, but never strikingly effeminate, he bleached his hair blonde. There were a few subtle tells– for example he had always run and thrown like a girl even in elementary school. Still, a lot of the girls had huge crushes on him, but I don’t remember him ever really dating or going steady with anyone.

Cecil and I were in Concert Choir, and also a more elite musical group called Rebelution. A silly name, I know, but in those days we were the Thomas Jefferson Rebels, before we were forced to adopt the more politically correct mascot, the Patriots. Our senior year we were in the High School musical, Hello Dolly. I was Horace Vandergelder, the male lead and he was Ambrose Kemper, a supporting character who is the starving artist love interest of Vandergelder’s weepy niece, Ermengarde.

Cecil Fulfer in his prime

After high school, I never really sang again except for a little karaoke, but Cecil went on to make a living in the theater.

I had reconnected with him at a luncheon in Dallas honoring Jack Cannon, the Concert Choir Director at Thomas Jefferson High School. We chatted a bit and I told him that I lived in Tyler. He said that he was staying with his sister near Hawkins and that we should get together sometime. I had to leave a bit early to come home, and I made it a point to hand business cards to most of my old classmates who were in attendance.

I gave one to Cecil. At Jack’s luncheon, we couldn’t help but notice that something was not right in Cecil’s life. It was painfully obvious that he was involved in some kind of substance abuse. He was higher than Amy Winehouse, Anna Nicole Smith, Ted Kennedy, and Boris Yeltsin all rolled into one.

Months later, Cecil called me and wanted to know If I’d like to meet for lunch. We met at On The Border in Tyler. He arrived glassy eyed and obviously high on something, and during the course of our lunch, he had three margaritas. I told him about what I’d been doing and showed him pictures of Lisa and our boys. We had a grand time reminiscing about school days and old friends. He was funny, but a little melancholy. At one point he looked at me and said, “Wayne, you know I’m gay, right?” I said that we all had surmised as much for a long time and that it didn’t make any difference to me. “I think of you as an old friend, Cecil. Your sexuality is never going to change that.”

Once he’d come out to me he seemed more relaxed for a while. Maybe my acceptance put him at ease, or maybe it was the margaritas. We talked about other friends from school who were gay. In the 1970’s most homosexuals stayed in the closet. I’m sure that some of them never realize they were even in the closet until later in life. According to Cecil, most of them were swept away in the AIDS epidemic. Two of them, counting Cecil were murder victims.

We laughed and enjoyed our time together for at least two hours, and then the melancholy deepened and seemed to overwhelm him. Here was a gay man in his early fifties, looking back on his life and wondering what might have been. It was like having a once beautiful actress who found herself sidelined by middle age pour out her heart and soul to you complaining that the roles have dried up, the scripts have stopped coming, and the phone never rings anymore. I listened and tried to encourage him, at the same time trying to fathom the kind of pain he was dealing with. We all wrestle with sin in our lives, but not all of us accept the Grace that is available.

As we were about to leave I told him that I didn’t think he should drive. He mentioned that his “friend” was waiting for him in the car and would drive him home. “He’s been out there all this time! Why didn’t you have him come in with you?” He looked at the floor and shrugged. I could tell he had been worried that I would have judged him had his friend joined us. “Cecil, I know that you know the Gospel. And I know that my role is not to judge anyone.”

The last time I spoke with Cecil I was at a dinner party and my cell phone rang. He was near hysterics, still under the influence of whatever he was using to self-medicate. He’d talked to our friend, Nancy Stokes Goodwin (another alum from Walnut Hill Elementary who had lived a few doors down the street from the Fulfers. She played Dolly!) Her breast cancer had returned and had metastasized in her spine. Her prognosis was bad. She was dying, and he was inconsolable. I explained to him that Nancy was going to be fine– that she was saved by Grace and once her temporary assignment here on earth was over she would know no pain, suffering, or heartache. It seemed to be of no comfort to him.

I immediately called Nancy. She was her usual positive, upbeat self. She had a way of making peace with everything in life that most of us lack. She said she’d try and talk to Cecil. Sadly, that was the last time I spoke with either of them.

The mug shot

When Cecil was murdered, it was pretty big news in Holly Lake Ranch. Murder is pretty rare there. I was out of town and think I learned the news in an e-mail. Of course, the coverage in Tyler was relatively scant. What coverage there was, was not very flattering to the victim. The picture they used was a mug shot taken when Cecil was busted on a public intoxication charge.

I wonder if anyone will ever be arrested and tried for Cecil’s murder. Sadly, I also wonder if his case was never a priority for the Wood County Sherrif’s Department because he was a sad old gay man with substance abuse problems. I think of him often, and wish I could have helped him. We do what we can do.

Share this:

Like this:

Related

Post navigation

6 thoughts on “Last Lunch With Cecil”

Very touching! Yes, we do what we can. That’s the right attitude. I think you were a great friend to him and you did a wonderful job of pointing him in the right direction. It was his decision to take what you witnessed to him and run with it. Maybe he did. Only God knows for sure.

Oh Wayne–that whole story makes me so sad. But beautifully written. I loved Cecil and I too noticed Cecil was high at the Mr. Cannon luncheon. I just didn’t know how to help and I hope he knew I always loved him-especially since we were church friends as well as school friends. I was listening to Nancy’s CD today. I can’t listen to her without also thinking of Cecil and Janna. They were my dearest and closest Northway friends and they are all gone too soon. I knew they loved Jesus and I know I’ll see them again!

Wayne, I look back on some of the relationships we had with folks we knew in high school and realize how painful those years were – for reasons we did not fathom at the time. Having had several friends who came out only when they became sick, it was so different then. Your surmise about the lack of progress on the homicide investigation is probably accurate – in a part of our country where it was likely given a different, derogatory epithet.

Theater life is difficult. A good friend in college who came out when he moved to New York said it was the most fun and most brutal time of his life. He said success, rejection and the need for approval that drove so many also drove them to dangerous lives. Richard Roberts died of AIDS related illness after having returned home to find a more settled life.

As one of those who knew Cecil from Walnut Hill through high school, I am sad that where we were as a nation was not where we needed to be in accepting people for who they are. I lost too many friends to addictions, disease and self inflicted death who could not find a way through. It is too bad that the world could not be the safe place that Jack Cannon’s choir room was….Poignant and powerful, Wayne -thanks for sharing.

Cecil was my uncle. I am one of Cathy’s daughters. No arrests have been made and we learned somehow they “messed up” the DNA test to help arrest his roommate, Bruce Finney. Please keep sharing this story so we can put pressure on the detectives to finish this case. Thank you for the story.

My mother, Cecil’s sister Cathy, was thrilled to see this picture you have posted. Thank you again and if ANY of you have any pictures of him at all, please please please email them to me so I can share with his sisters who miss him dearly. My email is Shnnlkelley@gmail.com. If we do get an arrest on his case I will surely let you know.

If anyone is interested we have set up a memorial page in honor of our beloved Cecil. It can be found by going to https://www.forevermissed.com/cecil-charles-jr-fulfer I am one of his nieces & since there are so many of you here who loved & cared about him I wanted to share the page with all of you in hopes of hearing any memories you all have shared. As well as seeing any old photos you may have. Thank you in advance & God bless.